1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a survey system and apparatus for evaluating the results. More particularly, it relates to a remotely accessible system for the collection of employee or non-employee survey responses to quantify various criteria relating to the operation of an organization.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In an increasingly competitive marketplace, business entities strive to improve leadership, quality, customer satisfaction and other criteria that directly or indirectly relate to the ultimate profitability of the enterprise. Empirical evidence has established that business operations that excel in distinct and measurable attributes are far more likely to be profitable in commerce. As an example, the “Baldrige Index” is made up of publicly traded U.S. companies that have received the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award during the years 1988 to 1996. The Secretary of Commerce and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) were given the responsibility, under Public Law 100-107, to develop and administer the Award with cooperation and financial support from the private sector. NIST “invested” a hypothetical $1,000 in each of the six whole company winners of the Baldrige Award. The investments were tracked from the first business day of the month following the announcement of award recipients (or the date they began public trading) to Dec. 1, 1997. Adjustments were made for stock splits. Another $1,000 was hypothetically invested in the Standard and Poor's Index 500 (“S&P”) at the same time. NIST found that the group of six outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 2.7 to 1, achieving a 394.5 percent return on investment compared to a 146.9 percent return for the S&P 500. Therefore, it is desirable for an organization to administer periodic assessments of its operations.
The detailed assessment of a business operation is often a difficult, expensive, and time-consuming task. Typically, upper level management may knowingly or inadvertently affect the accurate measure of information gathered for the assessment. Outside consultants are often employed to interview and observe the operation of the enterprise on-site. However, management may wish to influence the data for a number of reasons. Upper level management may be greatly affected by the results of the evaluation and may attempt to direct the outside consultant only to well performing operations, shielding problem areas from discovery. In addition, the outside consultant may interview subordinate employees in the presence of their supervisor. This creates a poor environment for gaining candor from the subordinate employee on potential areas of improvement that are the responsibility of the supervisor.
An evaluation by an outside consultant may require the consultant to travel to different geographical locations to assess a large operation with continuity. The consultant may also require the employee to stop productive work to allow time for the assessment interview. It is time-consuming for an independent consultant to conduct individual employee interviews, record the data, and assemble the information into a useful form. Furthermore, should a business wish to conduct periodic evaluations, there is no guarantee that the same consultant will be available. Therefore, the company cannot be assured that the next independent assessment performed will have the same consistency. Nor is there any assurance that secondary evaluations will produce meaningful results comparable to previous exercises.
Should the company attempt to apply known economic principles to an “in-house” self-assessment, there is the potential that more harm than good may come from the endeavor. Many organizations begin the process of self-assessment with a shallow understanding of the performance criteria sought or the optimal method in which to gather the information. This self-assessment suffers from an inseparable relationship between the company's own evaluator and the upper management that may exert influence, not only on the examinees, but also on the examiner.
Previous attempts have been made to provide business-related surveys such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,551,880 to Bonnstetter et al. (the '880 patent) which is incorporated herein by reference. The '880 patent describes a system for predicting the potential success of an individual for a particular job or task. A survey is conducted wherein the employee or potential employee submits information on behavioral and value preferences. The information is then analyzed and compared against standards for behavior and values previously resolved for specific employment. In a preferred embodiment of the '880 patent, the behavior and value questions are administered through software and evaluated via a predetermined algorithm. However, the system analyzes the individual employee and not the business entity as a whole. Nor does the '880 patent describe an independent party to administer the survey to ensure confidentially, honesty, and a full disclosure of the employee's perceptions of the business entity.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus to provide a reliable self-assessment survey process that can be easily administered and scored with the accuracy and completeness of a well developed written narrative self-assessment.
There is a further need in the art to integrate existing telecommunication technologies to avoid the time and labor intensive ordeal of the paper and pencil process or other traditional means of survey administration. This would allow the database of both individual responses and cumulative data to be completely external to the organization being assessed.
There is a further need in the art to provide confidentiality to organizations and their employees participating in the survey. This provides a distinct opportunity to benchmark the data to industry peers and to provide the objective assurance that all data is accurate and verifiable by a reliable survey administrator organization.
However, in view of the prior art in at the time the present invention was made, it was not obvious to those of ordinary skill in the pertinent art how the identified needs could be fulfilled.